City of Wisdom and Blood

by Robert Merle

  It was also during the month of January that a series of balls began, which were given at night under torchlight by the nobles or rich merchants of the city. As far as I could tell, however, it was the same group of people who attended all of them, and so, as the “little cousin” of Madame de Joyeuse, I was invited everywhere. Samson was, as well, since he is my brother—and a lad of great beauty—but he declined the honour, declaring that these balls were ridiculous, vain, frivolous and sinful. As soon as his roumieuse paramour had departed, my beloved brother had returned to his Huguenot austerity, as to a cloak that he wouldn’t have removed except to lie for a few moments in a bed of flowers.

  Although I’d never attempted to dance in my life, raised as I was by my Uncle de Sauveterre, I didn’t miss any of these balls, and quickly learnt the swing dance, the galliard and the wheel dance, in which I found a double and delicious pleasure: the movements that I made, of course, but also the movements of the girls I danced with that were so graceful and beguiling to watch. For an entire month, until the last day of carnival, when all of the balls end, I never returned to my lodgings until after midnight, my shirt soaked and legs aching with fatigue. But at five the next morning, fresh as the dawn (which hadn’t yet arrived), my mind clear and eager for learning, I’d set off for the college, carrying my books, with Miroul at my side with my writing desk and candle. We always wore swords and pistols in our belts since it was still dark out, but when we got to the rue du Bout-du-monde, I took my desk and candle from Miroul and gave him my weapons. I won’t claim that I wasn’t tired of a morning, or that my thoughts didn’t wander somewhere above all the wounds, fevers and sores that our teachers described to us, but I got through the labours of the day well enough. And at nightfall, invited to another ball, I’d start all over again.

  On the eve of Mardi Gras, Aglaé’s brother, Justin de Mérol, a handsome lad of sixteen who had befriended me, brought me a long white robe, a mask of the same colour, a sack and a wicker basket.

  “So what am I supposed to do with all these trappings?” I asked in my surprise.

  “Well,” said Justin, who had an easy laugh and spoke a very different French from his sister’s Parisian dialect, since he’d received very little education, “put on the robe, tie on the mask and attach the sack crosswise in front of you with the two cords.”

  “And what am I supposed to put in the sack?”

  “Ah, that’s a secret,” he laughed.

  “And what’s the basket for?”

  “It’s a secret.”

  “I’m going to bet,” I said, turning it over and over, “that this handle that I see in the centre is to hold it out in front of me like a shield.”

  “That’s a pretty good guess,” said Justin. “Pierre, remember that tomorrow, the twelfth of February, is the noblemen’s carnival, and we’re going to get as crazy as march hares. I’ll come find you here at noon, and will explain everything then.” And, this said, off he ran, laughing, one of the nicest fellows you’ll ever meet, but hardly the brightest—not that it mattered since he’d never have to worry about getting on, his father being worth 100,000 livres.

  He was back late the next morning, followed by a valet carrying a large sack.

  “Let’s go, Pierre! Get your harness on!” he laughed, and his gaiety was so infectious that I couldn’t help joining in, intrigued as I was to wear a disguise, and experience what a snake must feel when it loses its skin. So I put on the robe and the mask, hiding my hair under a cap since, being blonde, it would have been too easy to identify me. Justin adjusted my sack crosswise and then announced, “And now for our munitions!”

  Hearing this, the valet passed him, one by one, the oranges he’d brought in the sack.

  “Oranges?” I gasped. “Am I supposed to throw oranges at people? Isn’t that a terrible waste? In Sarlat, if you can find them at all, oranges are very dear.”

  “But here,” said Justin, always laughing, “they’re only four deniers for two dozen. Which is to say you can get them for nothing. And look, Pierre, I was careful to choose soft ones so they won’t hurt our assailants too much.”

  “And who am I to assail?”

  “Anyone who is harnessed like we are, and wears a red ribbon on his shoulder and not, like us, a blue one. Let’s be off, Pierre, it’s time, let’s not hang about here any longer. Our side agreed to meet in front of Notre-Dame des Tables at noon so we’d have the high ground. My valet will follow us to keep us in ammunition.”

  “No, no!” I argued. “He’s carrying too much weight. He’d slow us down. I’ll get Miroul to come with him and carry a second sack with half of our munitions.”

  It was a glorious battle and we fought like madmen and were watched by great crowds of people of all classes and walks of life, who laughed and applauded and sometimes came up so close behind us to watch the progress of the battle that they’d get hit in the head or the face with the “cannonballs” that were intended for us. Indeed, the people of Montpellier are every bit the inveterate gawkers that Parisians are reputed to be.

  The blue and red sides had agreed that once an orange had hit the ground, it shouldn’t be picked up and thrown again, the only acceptable munitions being those we had in our sacks, or ones that were caught in flight—an exploit I managed twice, to the great merriment of the crowd. Unfortunately, there were some rogues among the onlookers who, seizing the dirty and burst oranges they found on the ground, began bombarding indiscriminately others in the crowd, sparing no one, not even the more peaceful onlookers. But seeing this, the leaders of both sides got together and suddenly we all presented a united front against these thugs and, advancing on them, we put them to flight under our bombardment, and finished them off by running them down and, in hand-to-hand battle, slapped them silly or kicked their arses so badly that they started yelling “Help! Murder!” as they retreated, a cry taken up by the crowd. This tumult attracted the attention of Cossolat and his archers, who quickly arrived on the scene. When they saw the square before Notre-Dame des Tables strewn with debris—a spectacle that, in truth, offended my Huguenot respect for the fruits of the earth and our duty to be good managers of all that she provides us for our nourishment—he scowled and, given his dark eyes, hair and skin, his visible displeasure had a powerful effect, especially since, as a Huguenot himself, lacking any indulgence for the excesses of the Catholic nobility, the spectacle of this awful waste had clearly exceeded his tolerance. And yet, as a man worried about his future career, and knowing who we were, given our costumes, he didn’t want to run the risk of angering the families of Montpellier’s finest youth, so, still scowling, he said, half serious, half joking, “My lads, if you weren’t who you are, I’d have you enjoy a few days in jail for the commotion you’ve caused here. So let me just remind you that this game, however traditional it may be, is still forbidden. I’ll turn a blind eye to it this time”—though, as I learnt later, he closed his eyes every year—“but on two conditions: first, that you each give a sol to my sergeant so that he can have this mess cleaned up. Second, that you take all the oranges you still have to the hospital and distribute them to the poor there, who will be happy to enjoy them.”

  We obeyed without any discussion, Cossolat being a man who suffered no answering back. Like everyone else, I gave my sol to the sergeant, very ashamed to have participated in this waste and very glad that my mask allowed me to escape Cossolat’s detection. But then I realized he must have known I was there when he saw Miroul among the valets who brought the oranges to the hospital.

  Cossolat was withdrawing after having restored order when a fellow hurried by, shouting that there was a beautiful procession in the rue de l’Espazerie, and, like sheep, the crowd set off in that direction, so I followed, along with my peers. And indeed, there was an impressive masquerade there, with costumed players dancing to the sound of tambourines, guitars and fifes. Everyone wore masks, their hair hidden under caps or wigs, some dressed as sailors, brandishing ropes and carrying baskets of fis
h (which were, thank God, made of painted cardboard), others as pilgrims with indulgences pinned to their backs, stomachs or backsides, still others as labourers, carrying the tools of their trades; finally there came a group of men dressed as women. All were wildly dancing in their gaudy costumes, while singing, jumping up and down and making strange cries; the most delirious of this procession seemed to be the men who were wearing women’s dresses, wigs and heels. For these “fellows” were parading like whores in heat, cackling, clucking, wriggling, batting their eyelashes, giving wanton looks and approaching passers-by with lewd gestures and expressions as if they were going to unzip them right there in the street. This made for hilarious laughter among the crowd, and, though I don’t like to see such ridiculous characterizations of the fair sex, it might have been funny if the entire group of them hadn’t seen our troupe and thrown themselves at us like misery on the poor world, shouting for all to hear that we were the prettiest rascals in all of Montpellier and that they wanted to marry us on the spot. Then, with piercing cries, they began feeling us all over our bodies, without sparing those parts that we reserve for women, trying to pull off our masks and slipping their hands under our robes. The most salacious, craziest and most excessive of these profligates was a tall, thin “woman” wearing a red wig who tried to squeeze me so hard that, to keep “her” hand off my arse, I had to elbow “her” in the stomach as hard as I could, but as the wench came right back at me, I threw a punch at her cheek, which only grazed her, but knocked her mask off. In the brief second or two that it took to readjust the mask, I caught sight of “her” face. I couldn’t believe my eyes and just stood there staring: I’d recognized Fogacer.

  *

  After this discovery I didn’t know what to think about it, which is another way of saying that it gave me almost too much to think about. I moved away from the group of masked bawds and their frenetic dancing to the sound of drums, which shook the ground under our feet, and, hearing that there was a group of actors who had made outlandish effigies of famous people and who were about to process around the city preceded by a band, I decided to try to see them. I headed in their direction through the press of the crowds and Miroul somehow caught up with me. We found them in front of the Barbote Tower, where the crowd was even thicker, given the people’s appetite for such mordant satire, and I suddenly caught sight of Samson. He recognized me immediately despite my mask, and was so enraged he threw himself into my arms without saying a word. Astonished to see him in such high dudgeon, I pressed him with questions. Finally, recovering his voice, he moaned, “Oh, Pierre. There’s more infamy here than I can bear. Merdanson, Carajac, Gast and Rancurel are here too, and are just as furious as I am to see our college so ridiculed and our illustrious master so cruelly disparaged.”

  “Maître Sanche!” I cried. “What’s this all about? What are they doing?”

  “Siorac,” said Merdanson, his large shoulders breaking a path through the crowd and followed by his lieutenants, Gast and Rancurel, and by Carajac. “Siorac,” Merdanson growled, “it’s villainy! These shitty shit-heads! May God send the Devil to roast their arses in hell and wrap their guts on his spit! These cowpats, these excreta, these faeces, these turdish turds, these clods of wayward marl! What they’ve done to Maître Sanche! Siorac, it’s villainy! We can’t let such an effigy be paraded around the city. It’s a dishonour to our college to allow our master to be vilified.”

  “Especially someone I so love and honour!” said Samson through the fury of his tears.

  “Does anyone know who did this?” I asked.

  “We don’t know,” said Carajac, clenching his large fists, “they’re wearing masks, but what I do know is that I want to stuff their effigy down their throats!” To which Gast and Rancurel nodded their assent with a resolute air.

  “Well, then, let’s go feel things out,” I suggested.

  “What do you mean?” asked Merdanson.

  “Find out who they are and how many they are. Stay here, all of you. I’ll be right back.”

  Crying “Give way! Give way there, I say!” I pushed through the crowd, and so great is the authority of one resolute man with a loud voice over a crowd, I was able to move through this Red Sea like Moses, and easily got to the first row of people. It didn’t take long to identify the effigy of Maître Sanche among the twenty or so that were displayed there: a big, fat, red-faced fellow with porcine eyes was turning it this way and that to the great amusement of his comrades.

  To tell the truth, as grossly made as it was, a little in the manner of a scarecrow on two crossed sticks, it was easy to identify its model: with his head topped by his apothecary’s bonnet, his long nose arching down to his long beard, Maître Sanche was easily recognizable by anyone in the city, even if his name hadn’t been hung around his neck. But the nastiness of this business wasn’t the caricature or the ridicule it conveyed, but the horrific rhymed inscriptions that were pinned to his black robe. One on his buttocks read:

  We’ll stuff right up the arse of any pharm’ist

  The pills with which he tries to harm us!

  Another, placed on his virile parts, couldn’t help but offend Samson and me:

  This old goat, now emasculate,

  Likes boys, not she-goats, for his date.

  And the third, attached to his stomach, proclaimed:

  Pork’s a meat Good Christians’ll use

  But dubious Christians will refuse.

  Worse still, as if to make this underhanded accusation even clearer, they’d derisively stuck in various places on his robe bits of fat and pork rind.

  I stood agog before such a malicious and stupid piece of cruelty, for Maître Sanche was defamed here in every possible way: in his art, in his private life and in his religious practice—this last insinuation the most odious and perilous of all, for it accused him of heresy and put him at the mercy of the priests.

  My blood boiled so hot at this shameful spectacle that it was all I could do to keep from assaulting the fat boor and ripping it out of his hands. But that would have been madness. I would have immediately been overwhelmed by his accomplices, and I had no idea how many of them there were. I’d come to get a sense of the situation, not start a fight. Calming myself down, I put on a friendly face, and approaching the fat churl with a smile (which is all that he could see of my face under my mask) and realizing that my white robe gave me something of an advantage over him, I said with perfect courtesy, “My friend, you’ve made a marvellous effigy there! It’s easily the best of any displayed here! I’m guessing you’re a group of medical students who’ve had enough of Maître Sanche’s discipline?”

  “Medical students?” said the oaf. “Not on your life. Medicine’s nothing but shit, spit and piss. We prefer other food. We’re law students.”

  “Ah, you law students,” I said, counterfeiting a sweet hypocrisy, “for me you’re the alpha and omega of all knowledge and I hold you in my highest esteem. I’d offer to stand you all a drink after the parade if there weren’t so many of you.”

  “But there are only ten of us here, and if this number doesn’t terrify you we’ll meet you at the Golden Tavern at five o’clock.”

  “We’ll see you there!” I said, bowing. “At five o’clock sharp!”

  When our medical students heard the news that the law students were behind this outrage, they gnashed their teeth and wanted to attack them right away. But we needed to plan our stratagem: wearing our masks we’d greet these oafs in a friendly and lighthearted way and offer to help them carry the effigy. As soon as Samson could get his hands on it, he’d tear it to pieces (with what pious rage you can easily imagine!) while we attacked our adversaries. Everything went exactly according to plan. We had the advantage of surprise. Before the law students could get over their surprise, we had hit them so hard, administering black eyes, split lips, broken teeth, knees to the stomach and kicks to the arse that all ten of them were knocked to the ground like pigs and lay groaning in pain. Samson, as beautiful in his r
ighteous wrath as the Archangel Michael, pulled the effigy apart, deboned its arms, broke its legs, ripped its robe to pieces, stomped the false nose and mouth into the mud and, striking a flint, set fire to the debris. In a minute, the entire effigy, which had cost the lawyers so many hours of venomous labour, was reduced to ashes.

  But in the hour of our triumph we fell into great peril, for the crowd, irritated that we’d destroyed such a clever effigy and fearful that we’d go after the others, gathered round us and began to threaten us with such terrible reprisals that we thought they’d pulverize us on the spot. I tried reasoning with them, explaining that we’d only wanted to avenge our master, and that Maître Sanche, far from deserving such treatment, was so illustrious that both Catherine de’ Medici and the king had visited him when they had passed through Montpellier. But they would have none of it. Their anger only seemed to redouble with every word I said, and we were soon surrounded by furious looks, clenched fists and angry shouts. Ah, the good burghers of Montpellier are not very accommodating when they’re angry! “At them!” they yelled. “Have at these miscreants! They’re trying to ruin our games! Whack and crack ’em! Brothers, let’s go! Castrate the rascals!”

  We closed ranks and prepared for what promised to be mortal combat, when all of a sudden someone—I found out later that it was Miroul, who quickly and quietly had snuck in among their ranks—shouted, “Watch out! Captain Cossolat’s coming!” His shouts were picked up and repeated blindly and in panic by others in the crowd, and suddenly all one could hear from one end of the square to the other was the name of our captain—who was, in fact, still in the rue de l’Espazerie, where he was trying to control the situation there. When he heard, however, that things were turning ugly at the Barbote Tower, he headed our way with his archers, so that, to our immense relief, after the people started shouting “Wolf!” the wolf actually arrived.